Bernice L. Neugarten, 85

Pioneering U. of C. gerontologist

July 26, 2001|By James Janega, Tribune staff reporter.

Bernice L. Neugarten, 85, whose skepticism for overly simple theories on aging and methodical debunking of myths that once surrounded the aging process made her one of the central figures in the modern study of aging and gerontology, died Sunday, July 22, of heart failure in her Hyde Park apartment.

Though she helped influence national understanding of issues including midlife crises and menopause, her central contribution to the study of gerontology was to regard aging as a process and not a stage of life.

Since the 1960s she brought her broad outlook and challenging questions on aging to myriad scientific and governmental panels on which she served, while also writing realistic assessments of life in one's 60s, 70s and 80s. Her academic work remains some of the most widely cited in gerontology.

"We are having to change our conception of what we mean by old. This was an early preoccupation of hers," said George Maddox, a longtime researcher on aging and director of the Long-Term Care program at Duke University. "She wanted to get people to think differently about later life. She was always running ahead of the field. She was among the most eminent there was."

Despite her later prominence in the field, Mrs. Neugarten attributed her emergence in gerontology to an early career fluke in scheduling. She was a part-time instructor in human development at the University of Chicago when she was asked in 1953 to teach a course in maturity and old age.

The former Bernice Levin was 11 when she began taking high school courses in her native Nebraska, and she completed her bachelor's in English and French literature at the U. of C. in 1936. She was 21 when she received a master's in educational psychology at the university in 1937.

Feeling too young to embark on a career as a high school teacher, she enrolled in what was then Robert Havighurst's Committee on Child Development at the university, later the Committee on Human Development. She received a PhD in human development in 1943, and after taking time off to have children returned there to teach part-time in 1951.

Though she shifted accidentally to studying aging, the subject captivated her, and her writings on the psychology of aging at all stages of life were prolific.

After a 1956 paper titled "Potentialities of Women in the Middle Years," she wrote "Society and Education" in 1957; "Personality in Middle and Late Life" in 1964; "Middle Age and Aging" in 1968, among other noted works she either authored or edited.

"She continued to evolve in her research and her career. Bernice was one of those people who even in the early days was capable of talking across disciplines," said Carol Schutz, executive director of the Gerontological Society of America. "She focused on life development, and she really was one of the frontiersmen in the field of aging."

Mrs. Neugarten became director of the U. of C. graduate training program in Adult Development and Aging in 1958 and, after a stint beginning in 1980 with the Northwestern University School of Education and Social Policy, had been an emeritus professor at the U. of C. since 1988.

She was a former president of the Gerontological Society of America and played key roles in the 1971 and 1982 White House Conferences on Aging. She served at other times on the Technical Committee on Aging Research for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and on the National Advisory Council of the National Institute on Aging.

"I once asked her, `What do you perceive your contribution has been to the study of aging?'" Maddox said. "And she said--quickly--`Returning older people to the human race.' We no longer see their story as having been told. We now see them in the process of living."

Mrs. Neugarten is survived by her daughter, Dail; a son, Jerrold; a brother, Jack Levin; and three grandchildren. Her husband, Fritz , died in 1990.

A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. Aug. 13 in Bond Chapel, 1025 E. 58th St., on the U. of C. campus.